'Ringer': Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to TV

With so many brand new dramas coming up, it's hard to know where to start getting excited! But it's fair to say that some are getting more buzz than others. Take The CW, which ordered three drama series. We're personally itching to see Rachel Bilson return to TV in Hart of Dixie (we're even re-watching our The OC boxsets) and The Vampire Diaries' new companion The Secret Circle looks like good fun. The most-talked about new CW show, though, has to be Ringer - Sarah Michelle Gellar's coming back! But can it live up to the hype?

What's it all about?Ringer is a little bit complicated to explain, but here goes. Sarah stars as Bridget, a recovering drug addict who's trying to put her life back together. That's all very well, but she soon ends up becoming the only witness to a professional hit. Figuring out that testifying might not be the safest idea, she decides that the best plan is to go on the run. Not just that, but she's going to assume the identity of her twin sister Siobhan, who has an apparently perfect life. Problem solved? Er, not quite. Things start happening, and before long Bridget realizes that Siobhan's life might not have been as lovely as it seemed.

Certainly there seems to be a lot of mileage in turning the age-old twin swap into something a bit more sinister. There's all the mistaken identity stuff of Bridget pretending to be Siobhan - and having to convince Siobhan's husband - and then we've got the mystery and thriller side to sink our teeth into. It does sound exciting, but is it all just a bit too silly? If you say the basics - that Ringer is about a woman on the run who assumes her twin sister's identity but soon discovers that she's in trouble too - it might make you roll your eyes a bit. As long as Ringer doesn't take itself too seriously, though, it could be a good ride.

It's got Sarah Michelle Gellar!Buffy the Vampire Slayer is back on television. Isn't that all you need to know? The cast of Ringer is actually pretty good - as well as Sarah, we've got Kristoffer Polaha, Ioan Gruffudd, Nestor Carbonell and Tara Summers. But let's be honest, the real draw is SMG. Ringer must be something pretty special to tempt her back to television after a fairly long break, and we're getting not just one dose of Gellar goodness, but two - she's playing twins, after all.

But think about the show again. Would you be as excited about it if Sarah wasn't attached? Does it stand on its own, or is it only interesting as a new project for someone that was in a great television show eight years ago? And - we have to ask - was Sarah the best thing about Buffy anyway? These are genuine questions - we're not really sure of the answers here at Tube Talk. Basically, we don't want to judge Ringer before we've seen it, but if the only reason we're looking forward to it is its lead actress, we should probably take a step back and think about it a bit more.

Network nightmaresRinger was actually developed for CBS at first, until the network decided it didn't want it anymore and passed it on to The CW, its younger sister. Obviously it's great that Ringer found a new home - most pilots that are dropped from their original networks never see the light of day - but the fact remains that it was dropped. CBS execs have said that they liked the show but just couldn't find a good place for it. Fair enough, but CBS only ended up picking up three new dramas for fall. Surely there was somewhere for Ringer, even if it ended up being shunted to midseason? It doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but maybe execs decided this was actually the best thing for the show. They might be right - that's what we're hoping, anyway.

The other concern with the network switcheroo is how Sarah feels about it. This was supposed to be her big return on the biggest network. Instead, she's ended up in a tough timeslot on a network that struggles to get more than 2m viewers. It's probably not what she envisaged when she signed up, and we're hoping she remains invested enough in the show. But we're sure she will - she's a professional and seems genuinely excited about the series. It's sometimes easy to obsess over the technicalities of TV when really the creative side is the most important. In fact, the move could actually be quite a good thing. The CW's audience is younger, cooler, and more likely to develop a cult fanbase (ideal for a former Buffy star). And Ringer seems like a fairly good fit for The CW (even though it's being paired with 90210, which is a bit odd).

But will we be watching?We are genuinely excited about seeing what Ringer has to offer when it arrives in the fall. It's always difficult to judge a show based on a few clips and a paragraph of information, but Sarah Michelle Gellar is enough to get us excited and the premise will keep us intrigued for now. The real test, as always, will be whether the series can live up to the hype. Based on the current evidence, and despite our little anxieties, we're pretty sure it can - now we've just got to wait!